


Gravitation

by SeaMint



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Flashbacks, Getting Together, I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT'S A TAGGGG, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Making Up, Non-Linear Narrative, Parties, Pining, Slow Burn, Tsukishima Kei Being an Idiot, Tsukishima Kei is Bad at Feelings, Yamaguchi Tadashi is a Good Friend, fluff if you squint, more or less
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22810603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeaMint/pseuds/SeaMint
Summary: Planets, at their furthest point from the sun, always return to be closer than ever before.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi, Yamaguchi Tadashi/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 33
Collections: TikTok's Recommendations (Haikyu!!)





	1. Orbit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Orbit_   
>  _/ˈôrbət/_   
>  _The regular repeated elliptical course of a celestial object around a star._

On a particularly dragging day on the last week of January, Tsukishima Kei is writing a paper on dreams and aspirations. There is, according to his teacher, a minimum requirement of 1,000 words and some sort of resolve before entering university. Kei wishes he were 16 and eating games away at a table filled to the edges with greasy comfort foods and iced tea, if only to be pushed as far away from this paper as possible.

1,000 words of dreams and aspirations that Kei had thought about for years is needed from him about three days from now. Currently, it is 10:27 PM on a school night and he is ten words in, if you count his name, the date, his class and the title: dreams and aspirations. 

He’d had them for years, planned his life to the nanoseconds, set himself a path with enough legroom for small changes of comfort. Years of planning. Years of thinking. Years of _dreaming_.

All thrown away.

_“Yamaguchi, where are you going for college?”_

_“Hm. Todai! They sent the letter last week.”_

_“Ah.”_

_“How about you, Tsukki?”_

_“Unimportant. But… I’m happy for you, Tadashi.”_

_“Tsukki?”_

Tohoku.

That’s where he was going.

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

_[Yamaguchi]: Tsukki, are you okay?_  
_You looked kind of down this morning  
_ _Wanna go to the bakery after school? I saw they had a sale on cake slices! :D_

_[Yamaguchi]: Tsukki?_

_[Yamaguchi]: Are you mad at me?_

_[Yamaguchi]: I hope you feel better soon, Tsukki :(( I’m sorry if I did anything wrong._

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

Kei finds himself staring too much at his breakfast on a hazy Saturday morning. Akiteru is on his day off from work, so today he’s sitting across from Kei, relishing in his sausage and eggs with all the time in the world a middle class salary man working on his master’s can get on Saturdays.

Kei’s eyes are sore from staring at his laptop for too long, and so far he’s 11 words into his essay (which means he’s only one word in. He’s still counting his name and the date and his class and the title). 

Akiteru’s chopsticks clatter on his plate before Kei registers that his own breakfast has only been reduced by at least a quarter of its original portion. Akiteru takes a long sip of his coffee (white, two teaspoons of sugar and a splash of milk) before he clears his throat.

As if Kei wasn’t suffering enough with his oncoming headache, Akiteru brings up the one thing Kei has managed to avoid thinking about for the past four hours of his consciousness today.

“Is Tadashi coming today?” He says casually, looking down his mute green mug as he sloshes around what’s left of his probably cold, probably still-full coffee. A bit of it spills off to the side and stains their yellow placemats brown. Akiteru frowns as he wipes it off with his thumb. As if through sheer spite, the stain smears and spreads and fades around the edges. The frown grows deeper.

“No.” Kei scoops out a bit of his now soggy cereal and dumps it back in the bowl. A particularly stubborn grain clings to the spoon.

Akiteru looks at him strangely, like Kei had started walking on water and told him he could do it too. It’s strange to Kei, too; it’s not uncommon that Yamaguchi doesn’t come over every once in a while. Had he let anything slip? Was there a crack Kei hadn’t bothered fixing?

“What,” He grits out callously, maybe too much so, and instead of backing off Akiteru looks down in confirmation of his own thoughts.

“Did something happen?” Akiteru says, all too knowing, all too right. Brotherly instinct, maybe, or just reading the hurt in people and giving alright responses that Kei’s still hadn’t mastered. 

“No,” Kei lies, as futile as it is. “It’s none of your business.”

Akiteru takes a long sip of his coffee, and if Kei didn’t know any better he’d say that was the end of it, but he knows better, so he sets himself a story in his head. Failed a quiz, got told off during practice, whatever. Akiteru sets his mug down, just right over the stain. Kei’s glad their mom left for their aunt’s house, or he’d get twice the amount of fussing he’s getting now.

“Kei,” Akiteru starts, and Kei notices a particularly interesting way in which two cereal grains float around each other. “Something happened. You can tell me.” There’s a way in which Akiteru talks that makes Kei think he punctuates each sentence in his head with a smiling emoji. Otherwise, Kei is both perturbed and unfazed at the notion.

“You don’t need to do that thing with me.” He stirs the cereal, watches the two grains drift apart and stick to other grains as they swirl around the bowl. 

“What thing?”

“That…that psychologist thing. It’s disgusting.” Without looking up, he can tell there’s already a frown on Akiteru’s face.

“I’m not doing anything. Kei, I’m not even a psychologist yet.”

“Then stop doing whatever it is!” Kei snaps, slamming an open palm on the table. Akiteru jolts, and his coffee and Kei’s cereal make tiny waves in their china. “Stop picking me apart! Nothing happened, okay? So quit it!”

“Kei, calm down, I’m not doing anything.” Akiteru places a reluctant hand on the table. “Something’s bothering you, and I know you can’t talk to Tadashi about it, so I’m here.”

Kei doesn’t look at him.

“Yamaguchi’s going to Todai.” He says quietly. Saying it out loud doesn’t bring about the acceptance he’d prayed for when Yamaguchi first said it. If anything, it brought the bitter aftertaste of hatred and another hand squeezing his chest. Years of planning his future thrown away at the mere mention of a word.

“Oh?” Akiteru says. The squeak of wood against linoleum fills his ears before Akiteru’s warmth is unbearably closer. “And you’re going to…”

“Tohoku. You have a degree in psychology. I think you can put two and two together.”

Akiteru’s laugh doesn’t speak of humour when it fills Kei’s ears. “How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not some sort of psychologist just because I got a degree.” There’s a warm hand on Kei’s shoulder. Yamaguchi’s hand would be a lot warmer, if not burning. Sweaty, too, and Kei won’t be anywhere near it for the next part of his life. “But,” Akiteru continues, “I don’t need a degree in anything to know what my little brother is thinking.”

“And that is?” _Please don’t say it._

“You’re scared.” _Please don’t be right._ “You feel like he’s leaving you behind and that when you go your separate ways you won’t be best friends anymore. You’re thinking, the moment Tadashi leaves your side he’ll realise there’s people that are better for him than you are, and that’ll be the end of it.”

“Wow, chief, did you practice that speech or something?” Kei drawls, if only to hide the fact that Akiteru hit the bullseye.

“Haha, Kei.” Akiteru musses his hair. Kei really should get a haircut. “I think I know both of you well enough,” he says, “to say that I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“I know it will.” Kei tries, in one last futile attempt, to find his appetite by digging through his cereal. “Nothing lasts forever. Going to different paths ensures you won’t meet at the end.”

“You won’t know unless you give it a try.”

Kei thinks, mostly to himself, that if this is what he’s putting at stake, he sure as hell doesn’t want to know.


	2. Aphelion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Aphelion_   
>  _/əˈfēlēən/_   
>  _The point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid, or comet where it is farthest from the Sun._

Kei, 16 and naive, had thought that he didn’t want to be freshly graduated and still living in his parents’ house, but here he is, 23 years old and one and a half years after finishing his degree in accountancy, still living with his mother. 

Akiteru had moved out right after he finished his master’s, quickly earning a job as a school counsellor at a middle school in Shibata. It’s much like when Akiteru was in college again, every weekend coming back to visit and Kei is alone with his mom, except this time, Kei’s the one making breakfast, and has nowhere to be and no one to have over.

_[Shouyou]: kei !!!! did you get that text from tadashi omg *^*_

_[Kei T.]: No?  
_ _What is it_

He’s not particularly surprised that Yamaguchi didn’t text him whatever news he texted Shouyou, considering the fact that Kei had perhaps dropped his sim card in the river right after graduation day and texted everybody on his contacts his new number except for Yamaguchi himself. 

He is, however, surprised he got a text at all.

_[Unknown]: Hello Tsukki!! Been a while. I got your new number from Hitoka-chan, if you don’t mind. I’d scold you for forgetting to tell me about it but that’s not what i’m here for ^^  
_ _Anyway, I’m engaged now! We’re going to have a party here in Tokyo to celebrate it, I hope you can come. Miyu-chan has always wanted to meet you!_

There are too many feelings Kei would much rather not unpack over his breakfast at five in the morning. Kei wonders why all three of them are even up this early. Kei knows why _he’s_ up this early, though he’d much rather not think about what happened the night prior.

_[Hitoka]: Kei-kun I’m so sorry :’ << he wouldn’t stop guilting me unless I gave it to him!! I hope you’re okay :’<<_

_[Kei-kun_ ☾ _]: Don’t worry about it, hitoka. I’m fine_

_[Hitoka]: If you say so :’ << I really am sorry. I know how you feel about him_

_[Kei-kun_ ☾ _]: It’s fine. It’s been a while, anyway. I don’t feel that way anymore._

_[Hitoka]: cat_heart.gif_

There’s something about lying to Hitoka that makes Kei feel guiltier than usual, but this particular one he’d told weighs him down and pins him to his seat. He knows going to that party is going to ruin the little progress he’s made since graduating. Knows it’s going to reopen wounds that are far from healed. His hands shake with pinpricks of anxiety. He feels like his heart is going to beat itself right out of his mouth.

Quietly, his breakfast is finished. He puts the plate in the sink and slinks back to his room. He nearly trips over an empty bottle of gin.

_Ah,_ he thinks to himself. He lets the numbness of last night overtake him as he lies back down in his ratty twin bed. The pillow is still wet. He tells himself it’s sweat, even if it’s cold and he slept with the fan on, and not his own tears or anything.

His hands still shake as they reach up to take the glasses perched on his nose off his face. Sleep comes before the tears do.

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

On the last week of March, not long after their graduation ceremony had finished, Kei stands in his empty classroom with a small pair of scissors in his hand. He tries, carefully, to snip off the button just above his heart, but fails and tears a hole in his jacket. He couldn’t really care any less, because it’s not as if he’s going to use the jacket after today. Nevertheless, the button is out, and he just has to take off the thread and the fabric, and he’d be fine.

The sound of two careful snips of the scissors fill the classroom. He places the button on a desk he knows all too well, every dent and scratch and pencil doodle memorised after all this time eating lunch next to it. 

Yamaguchi won’t find it, Kei tells himself. This is more a formality than a confession, and it’s not like Yamaguchi will know who it’s from—that is, if he ever sees it in the first place.

Kei mutters softly to the button, some sort of broken prayer, touches the small detailing in the metal with the tips of his fingers. How fitting, he muses, a broken prayer from a broken heart. Something deep in his chest, all crystal fragments and jagged around the edges, buries itself deeper in his lungs.

Come tomorrow morning, Yamaguchi leaves for Tokyo. Kei told him he’s too busy to send him off, but really, he’s more afraid he’ll ask Yamaguchi to stay if he went. Instead, there’s a letter in his pocket, short and sweet (or as sweet as Kei is willing to get), written in Kei’s sleek, flowing handwriting. 

_Good luck in Tokyo. -Tsukki_

He can tell Yamaguchi himself, hug him goodbye one last time before their threads are cut short, tell him all the things, all these _feelings_ , he’d collected over the past three years. But things haven’t really been normal since his whole life’s plans had been ruined by just a few simple words. Every moment with Yamaguchi felt worse than walking on eggshells. Every second is like another stab to his heart, and Kei can tell it’s not just him teetering on the edge of insanity.

Kei wonders what use it would be to repair something you chose to destroy.

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

When he wakes up at a far more reasonable hour, his mom had left the house and given him a list of errands to run. Kei figures he hasn’t been outside in a while, now, but it’s not like he had much of a say in it either.

“Ah, Tsukishima! Long time no see!” A familiar voice greets him as he enters the convenience store.

“Nishinoya-san,” he returns with the expected far less enthusiasm. “It’s only been a week.”

“Come out of your house and play a few games once in a while, alright?” Nishinoya says, but the look he levels Kei with leaves him gutted, as if it screamed concern, but mostly pity, and Tsukishima Kei is _not_ someone to be pitied.

“I’ll see,” he says shortly. He’s only here to get soy sauce, goddammit, but why did he have to get thrown straight into the frontlines of Nishinoya’s _concern_. The way he wore it, loud as ever without even saying a word. If Kei didn’t have any reservations like he did back in highschool, he’d let out a snark or two, but there’s fragments of something that broke in his chest, and if he let his mouth run he might say something he’d actually regret.

When Nishinoya is scanning the bottle of soy sauce and extra pieces of candy that Kei decided to get for himself, he suddenly shouts in remembrance.

“What?” Kei grits, and Nishinoya’s enthusiasm doesn’t fade an ounce.

“I just remembered!” Nishinoya points at him with the cap end of the bottle. “You’re looking for a job, right? I heard Watanabe-san has an opening! It’s no big-shot thing like you would like but—”

“I’ll take it.”

“Ah, okay then!” Nishinoya grins at him, big and bright, his momentum unfazed by interruption. “I’ll text you all the details, then!” Kei hands him the money and Nishinoya hands him a small plastic bag with his groceries inside. “See ya around!” He calls after Kei. His chest felt light, and something Hitoka would describe as _fluffy_.

He knows it’s pointless to get hopeful this early, but maybe, just maybe, this is the start of a turnaround for him.

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

Watanabe-san, if Kei remembered correctly, is the owner of the bookstore he and Yamaguchi used to frequent back in highschool. Frequent, as in, it’s the most complete bookstore around, so when they’re up for it, or when they’d need something, then Watanabe-san is their immediate go-to. It doesn’t mean anything for Kei and his entire history of Yamaguchi, so he doesn’t worry about working there giving him second-hand heartache.

(Then again, this whole town of his screamed Tsukishima-and-Yamaguchi, so maybe he had grown used to the hurt, much like with his street, and much like with his house, and much like with his room, and much like with his entire self.)

The first thing that greets him as he enters the warm little shop is a calico cat, old and fat and slightly wall-eyed. He bends down, greets her by name ( _“Mocchan,”_ but known professionally as Mochi), and as she’s rubbing her little cat head against his black pants, another voice greets him.

“Tsukishima-kun!” It exclaims, sounding surprised. He looks up and finds a girl his age, wearing a tracksuit and a backpack draped on one shoulder. Watanabe Tsumugi, if he remembers correctly, sat behind him in second year and constantly asked for and finished up his white-out. No hard feelings, anyway.

“Watanabe-san,” he greets back, standing up only to bow again. She nods back, her ponytail bobbing. “I’m here for the job opening?”

“Oh, you’re looking for my grandmother then! She’ll be down in a bit.” She plops in an earbud then considers him thoroughly. “I’m off then, say hello to Tadashi-kun for me!” She leaves, running past him and out into the street at an even pace.

_Tadashi-kun…_ Kei thinks to himself. It’s funny how familiar it sounded on her, a stranger’s lips, but somehow it’s the most foreign thing Kei’s heard in his lifetime.

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

In the middle of making dinner later that night, Kei’s patience is tested by the constant buzzing of his phone, face down somewhere on the coffee table in the living room. He’s tossing the vegetables, and his head aches somewhat as his phone threatens to buzz itself to the floor. His mother should be coming back any minute now, and he’d hate for her to come home to nothing on the table. It’s not like she ever let him come home to anything less than warm.

As soon as the vegetables were mixed in with the meat and the rice, he sets the table and grabs his phone. 

_[12 missed calls from Unknown number]_

_[Unknown]: You know, phones are advanced now, Tsukki!!  
_ _I know you’ve read my messages. Text back, please ^^_

It’s only now, two days after he’d received the news of Yamaguchi’s engagement, does Kei realise he hadn’t replied in favour of letting himself drown in all these feelings he’d only really been vaguely wading through these past five years. Kei has, of course, the gall to get annoyed. Yamaguchi had five years to get short with him, so why get impatient now?

For not the first time in his life, Kei decides the universe was hellbent on making his life a dull, half-hearted, unabashedly _mediocre_ hell.

His mother arrives, at least, saving him the trouble of thinking of a reply that doesn’t sound the least bit off. She gives him a boxed cake slice and an enthused “I’m home!” and he takes it with his own quiet “welcome back.”

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

_[Tsukki]: Sorry  
_ _I’ll be there_

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

If he can recall, two days ago, Kei got absolutely wasted on bottom-shelf gin feeling sorry for himself for all his wasted potential. Graduated top of his class with a degree in accounting, a nice, comfortable path paved out for him to walk on, decent job offers all the way to Tokyo. Though the second he threw the cap in the air with the face of someone who’s worked dog-tired in an 8-5 drone of an office job, he’d thrown it all away too.

Two days later, when his life was taking a hairpin turn straight into better things, Kei should have known it would cost something, too. He may have a job now that he’d prayed for every day since he’d lost all the job offers ( _there’s always someone better_ ), and he had the ground to walk on and air to breathe, and a mother that cares and lets him be a homebody son, but that doesn’t mean he can escape what he’d probably been avoiding all those years ago.

Yamaguchi was so, so far, the furthest he’d ever been, and yet Kei’s coming back, slowly, naturally, and it’s not like he’d wanted to, but by force of the universe’s will, he guesses it’s inevitable. Like a planet to the sun. Perihelion is inevitable.

So here he is, back to where he was two days ago. Instead of the cool glass of a bottle of gin, he’s treated to a lukewarm can of beer he’d gone out to buy while his mother was asleep. Kei keeps telling himself, one time after the other, that he’d stop this. No more staying up at night with his knees pulled to his chest and the tears in his eyes feeling sorry for himself. 

Here he is again, though. Different reasons, same bad habit. Whatever fuzzy face that had introduced him to alcohol in college is just another curse of the past, another one to regret. Yamaguchi the first, countless others which followed. Kei is beginning to wonder if the universe hates him after all. He recounts what’s making him hurt just to make sure he’s in enough pain. 

Yamaguchi, happy, somewhere far away and most definitely better off now that Kei is gone. Yamaguchi, who he’d been in love with for as long as he can remember, happy and in love with someone else, _Miyu-chan_ , who Kei has to watch Yamaguchi get married to. Yamaguchi without Kei, Kei without Yamaguchi, which had seemed unlikely, in a friendship like theirs. One without the other was like a world with no air. But Yamaguchi’s gotten so far now that Kei let him go. Or since he let go of Kei. Kei’s unsure which happened first, or if the former really happened at all.

There was a time Kei would proudly say Yamaguchi was a man that walked ahead of him. After all, the concept of pride and Yamaguchi went hand in hand in Kei’s head. Now it’s thought in bitterness, of Kei not being there to watch him succeed, of Kei not being there at all.

He pops open another can of beer. He tells himself, like he did the last two or three, that this is his last.

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

The job was simple enough.

Obaasan needs more help with the bookshop and Watanabe already has a job of her own, so Kei has to come in every day from ten in the morning to nine at night to do the same thing: open up, feed Mochi, sweep, do inventory, and close up. Somewhere in between is handling the customers, but what else could he honestly expect at a retail job?

Kei easily finds a rhythm on his first day, has already mastered a greeting that doesn’t sound bored by the third ring of the bell, and by the time night fell, had been commended as a natural twice. He doesn’t take it as much of a compliment. Watanabe came back around an hour after the sky went dark to bug him some.

Currently, she’s leaning over the counter and asking him questions, some of which Kei is too afraid to answer truthfully. “How’s Tadashi?” She’d jumped after the pleasantries. Kei mulls over telling his boss(? Technically?) how he’d cut ties with his best friend after pushing himself to come to terms with the fact that _this won’t last forever, so might as well just end it now._ But of course it wasn’t that simple, especially not when it came to Yamaguchi. 

“He’s fine,” he lies, as if he knew. “Haven’t seen him in a while, though.”

“Oh?” She says, leaning into her crossed arms. “He’s in Tokyo now, right? What’s it like there? Surely you visit him frequently.”

“Ah,” Kei strains himself to say something, _anything._ “It’s nice, but I don’t really visit.”

“Tsukishima-kun!” She scolds. “It’s not nice to just leave your boyfriend all alone like that!”

Um. “Excuse me?” _WhatTheFuckWhatTheFuckWhatTheFuckWhatTheFuck._

Watanabe’s eyes widen and she jolts upright. “Sorry!” She squeals. “I just thought– I mean, we all just sort of figured– He– you! You liked each other! Then that thing I saw… Graduation! Was that not…?”

“It’s fine,” Kei lies again. Was he really that obvious? Even in highschool? And to think someone saw him leave that button. “We’re not together.”

Watanabe looks like she’s about to say something, but settles to change the topic instead. Kei doesn’t want to think about the fact that the past still won’t leave him alone even after all this time.

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

Come Friday, he and Hitoka squeeze themselves into a train to Tokyo. The entire time, though she really didn’t need to, Hitoka rubbed the pad of her thumb over Kei’s knuckles, and the little indents of veins that were starting to show. There’s something sad in her eyes, as she looks at him all glazed over, and Kei felt almost intrusive, because she seemed so vulnerable in a situation she wasn’t even really part of.

“I wonder who else would be there!” She tries lightly, gloved hand still absentmindedly tracing the crevices of the back of Kei’s hand. There’s a dip where the second knuckle of his right pinky is, and she seemed to favour this spot most. 

“The Karasuno team, maybe, and some other people we don’t know,” he states, though it was obvious enough. Hitoka dips her head slightly, and her bangs, longer, unclipped, hides her eyes.

“Are you sure you want to come, Kei?” She whispers, and for the first time since the train ride started, her small hand covers the back of Kei’s and she squeezes what she could. “We can hop off at the next station then take a cab back.” 

“I want to.” He doesn’t. “I think it’s time I face him again.” Kei is wholly unprepared for it. Five whole years of sulking and barely moving on, holding feelings down with his bare hands and a bit of alcohol, Kei doesn’t think that’s the kind of preparation these things warrant. In fact, if he can bear himself to say it, Kei doesn’t think he tried to prepare himself at all, was quite sure he’s good enough at planning and being elusive to ensure he’d never have to face Yamaguchi again.

“If you say so,” Hitoka says softly. She unclasps her hands from his digs through her tiny bag for a brochure she’d picked up at Watanabe’s. “I’m glad you agreed to come early, by the way! I wanted to do some sightseeing before we see Yamaguchi, and we have a few days afterwards if there was more you wanted to do before we went back…”

It’s funny, Kei thinks, how seamlessly Hitoka flows in and out of concern for Kei. _Concern_. For _him_. How incredulous a thought.

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

There’s this [neat little illustration](https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs-zDD9FJOl/) of _Lines of Closeness_ that went around the internet for a bit, before it died down to make room for the next fake deep thing. Kei himself had been staring at it a lot, when the link popped up on his facebook feed once. 

There were ten, squiggly little lines with neat english writing scribbled on top, each one a different type of relationship. He found himself lingering on the two _best friend_ lines, wondering, why did he need two? Can’t the childhood best friend be your college one, too? Did the childhood best friend _have_ to drift away?

It’s strange, how optimistic he is about his own best friend, building the future around the belief that Yamaguchi would be there to walk through it with him. He silently commits the lines to memory, meeting, together at the beginning, but ultimately fraying apart.

_That won’t be us,_ he tells himself. _I won’t let it be us._

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

As soon as they leave the train, Kei figures Tokyo, or the universe rather, has it out for him. Hitoka has her face buried in the pamphlet that talks of no more information than what you’d ask someone who’s never been to Tokyo, so it’s only Kei that sees it. Or rather, _him_.

When the train speeds by to its next stop, Kei gets a clear view across the platform. Yamaguchi stands with an armful of paper bags bunched in his left arm as he scrolls through his phone with his free hand. Kei hasn’t seen him in a while, so he expects the drastic change in everything, but not quite… this. 

His hair was cut short, shorter than it had ever been, cut where Kei assumes is right at the dip before the neck, because there isn’t any more of it spilling out from under his ears like they always did in highschool. His three-part bangs look the same as they ever did, brushing at his eyebrows ever so slightly. His one unmanageable lock of hair looked unmanageable as ever, and Kei is slightly grateful for it. He looks a little more filled out, or it could just be the coat he’s wearing for the incoming colder seasons, but Kei’s sure it’s a lot more than what he’d last seen in their third year. 

Regardless of Kei’s ogling, he’s still not ready for this; not ready for Yamaguchi to see him just yet. They have two days before his little engagement party. Kei prays for the world to at least give him that.

“Hitoka,” he murmurs quietly. “We have to go. _Now._ ”

The urgency in his tone makes Hitoka’s head look up from the brochure. She takes one glance across the platform, then hurriedly shoves them both towards the stairs of the subway. “I’m so sorry Kei,” she apologises as they’re rushing up the stairs. “I didn’t– he wasn’t supposed to–”

“Hitoka.” Kei stops mid-staircase. Hitoka lightly bumps into his back. “It’s fine. We didn’t know.”

Hitoka turns around, her blue coat swishing along with her. She’s a few steps higher than Kei is, but she’s still shorter than him. It’s cute. “I don’t think you’re ready,” she says, firm. Her eyebrows are furrowed, and her lips, tinted a glossy pink, are downturned into a frown. It wasn’t that she was angry, but there were certain frustrations behind her brown eyes that glint past her usual cheerfulness. Kei feels, for the first time in his tired, tired life, that he’s finally looking up at someone.

“Hitoka!” Someone shouts, bright and bubbly, behind Kei. Hitoka tilts herself to see past Kei, and her face lights up as she waves her hands above her head.

“Shouyou!” She greets back, and a blob of orange burns past Kei and rams straight into Hitoka on the stairs. A few people turn to look at the small kerfuffle their group is making, but otherwise go their way. 

Shouyou turns to Kei, then, an arm still wrapped around Hitoka, and puts a hand to his chin in thought. 

“What?” Kei asks. Shouyou punches him in the arm loud enough to make Kei yelp. “What the fuck?”

“I know you told Hitoka not to wait for me!” He declares, pointing an accusatory finger at Kei. “Wouldn’t kill you to be a little more patient once in a while.”

“Wouldn’t kill you to wake up on time once in a while,” Kei grits back, slapping Shouyou’s hand down. Shouyou glares at him. 

“Come here, you big bitch,” Shouyou grins, then, spreading muscled arms. His tan has faded since he came back from Brazil, but if you look close enough it’s still there. Kei, despite how he’d acted in highschool, doesn’t even pretend to groan as he wraps his arms around Shouyou. 

Shouyou, by now, comes up slightly above Kei’s chin. Kei tells himself that sometimes, change is good.

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

He remembers it so clearly. The way the moonlight shone through the clouds. Him, alone, as he should be. The quiet of the night disrupted only by a cricket chirping from its hiding place.

The way Yamaguchi’s voice cut through the air. The crazed look in his eye. The way he gripped Kei’s shirt so tightly, his knuckles turned white.

The things he yelled.

_“What more do you need than pride?!”_

Kei’s heart had beat itself right out of his mouth, and he remembered thinking, through the shaking of his hands, and the things running around his head, that this is how volleyball should feel like.

Yeah.

Volleyball should feel the way Yamaguchi makes him feel.

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

He’d been in Tokyo back then, too. It felt like meeting Yamaguchi again for the first time. The _real_ Yamaguchi, tangible and in front of him, cool as Kei always knew he was. Tokyo, back then, was just training camps and waiting to go back home. Getting taunted by third years and getting better at something he didn’t really like.

It was thinking, man, when was the last time I really looked at my best friend?

Tokyo, now, when he’s much older and hard around the edges, is a lot more complicated than that. Tokyo is something he had forced himself not to think about in years. It was a train ride away and yet so, so far. Tokyo is a box in which Yamaguchi exists, and Kei is forced to exist everywhere else. Tokyo is close and far, and it’s something he wants and doesn’t. It’s new and it’s different and it’s scary all at once.

But it’s still the same as he thinks, man, when was the last time I really looked at my best friend?

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

Kei has around 10 hours before he has to go see Yamaguchi again. Currently, he is sitting across from Hitoka in a crowded dining hall for the breakfast buffet. Her blond hair is still sticking up and knotted at the ends, and she hasn’t bothered with putting it in a ponytail like she usually does. His food is maybe delicious, but all it tastes like at the moment is morning breath.

Shouyou, about 30 minutes later, comes downstairs with his hair messier than usual and a glazed over look in his eyes. He sits down with a plate of bacon, eggs, and waffles, devours it all and stares blankly at his plate. 

“Anything—” Hitoka pauses to yawn. “Wrong?”

“Tobio just called,” Shouyou answers, blank as his expression. Kei and Hitoka look at each other. “He’s not going to make it later.” Kei wishes, partly, that he was the same.

“Sad,” Kei replies, biting into his bagel. “’S that all?”

“He told me he likes me.” Kei chokes on his bagel. Shouyou looks off to the side, where a table of cereal is getting crowded by a bunch of kids. His expression doesn’t change at all. “I couldn’t say anything back, so he just said ‘I see,’ then hung up.”

“Shouyou…” 

“It’s fine,” Shouyou says, and he smiles, small and fake, and so easily recognisable for Kei. “I’m fine.”

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

Shouyou doesn’t make it to the dinner, either.

Hitoka and Kei are currently sitting in a restaurant full of practical strangers, and some people they know from highschool. Kozume Kenma is getting dragged around by Kuroo Tetsurou, who’s saying hi to people like he knows them. Oikawa Tooru is, for some unknown reason, here with Iwaizumi Hajime.

They’re in a room full of enemies, but Kei’s final boss is someone familiar and warm.

More and more people stream in, some Kei could recognise, others complete strangers. It’s an awful feeling, how slowly the realisation trickles in that his “best friend” has a life he’s not part of. But Yamaguchi’s inviting him back in, so that counts for something, right? 

Yamaguchi comes in holding hands with a lady whose face Kei can’t bear to memorise. They say hi to all these strangers first. Kei’s chest clenches with something he hasn’t thought of since senior year.

It counts for something, right?

Yamaguchi talks to Kenma, who actually smiles back, genuine and happy. He mutters something softly, and Yamaguchi laughs in return. Kei is left to wonder when all this had happened. 

It _has_ to count, right?

After what seems like painful, torturous ages, Yamaguchi wanders over to their table and stops behind them. He hugs Hitoka first.

“Hitoka-chan!” He greets, and Kei takes himself back to a time when Yamaguchi couldn’t even think about Hitoka without growing all jittery and nervous. “I’ve missed you!”

Hitoka doesn’t even spare Kei a glance as she hugs back. “Tadashi-kun, I’ve missed you too!” She pulls away, and Yamaguchi rests his hands on the backrest of Kei’s seat. Hitoka sits back down next to Kei. “I’m so happy for you,” she says softly, but underneath the table her hand comes to rest on Kei’s knee. With how Hitoka is so warm with Yamaguchi, even if it’s reasonable given their circumstances, Kei’s kind of tempted to kick it away. But Hitoka is Hitoka, and it’s not her fault Kei is a selfish dick. He lets himself sigh.

“Tsukki,” Yamaguchi finally says, his hands moving from the backrest to Kei’s shoulders. They clench uncomfortably. Kei doesn’t find it in himself to flinch. “’S been a while, huh? How long has it been?”

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

On a sluggish summer day right before their second year, Kei’s wifi went out while Yamaguchi was visiting. It wasn’t much of a bother, but there was only so much a teenager can do without the internet and only so many pages of a book one can read before getting bored out of their wits. Yamaguchi seemed to think so. When Kei set down the book he was reading, Yamaguchi was already fiddling with something on his phone.

“What are you doing?” Kei had asked. The cicadas had never been louder. The heat leaked into the room. Yamaguchi lowers his phone a bit from his face. His bangs were clipped back, because if they weren’t, the breeze from the electric fan Kei had turned on would sweep the ends into his eyes. The clip was pink that day.

From where Kei was, lying down with his head next to a cross-legged Yamaguchi’s thighs, he could see the orange and black of Yamaguchi’s calculator app. 

“Calculating how many minutes I’ve been alive.”

Kei had looked at the number, then, comma-less, harder to read. He’d bitten back a yawn and tears fogged his eyes in doing so. “How long has it been?”

“Approximately 8,735,040 minutes. I’m not including the nine months in the womb part.” Kei hadn’t bothered to run the probably too-complicated math in his head, because why would Yamaguchi have any reason to lie, anyway. 

“Is the wifi going out so bad that you’d partake in such fruitless endeavours?” Kei yawned, the sun coaxing his eyes shut when it shone through the window with such intensity. Kei had to relearn why they called Hinata the sun.

“Yes,” Yamaguchi had said and put a hot hand to Kei’s forehead. It felt feverish, Yamaguchi’s naturally warm hands and the sun beating down on them mixing together like that. Kei had felt an oncoming headache, then, and Yamaguchi’s palm was sweaty. But they had combed through his hair and joined the sun in luring Kei to sleep, and he could barely keep his eyes open as Yamaguchi spoke his next few words.

“You should sleep, I can entertain myself plenty.”

Kei had known enough about Yamaguchi then to know that it meant fiddling with his phone for a few more minutes before joining Kei in his nap.

Kei had wondered, through bleary, sleep-laden eyes and the frames of his glasses poking into his eye sockets, what would come out if he tried to calculate the minutes he’d known Yamaguchi. 

_4,207,680._

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

“How long has it been?” 

_2,629,440._

“A while,” Kei answers curtly. He doesn’t stand up for a hug. Yamaguchi seems fine with that.

“It has,” he agrees, and pulls himself away from Kei. It’s both cold and a relief. “Hold on, I’ll introduce you to Miyu-chan!” Kei’s never been less excited for anything Yamaguchi wanted to show him.

They come back and before she even says anything, Kei is already thinking.

Miyu-chan is… pretty. She’s perfect. She’s kind. She’s everything Yamaguchi deserves. “Kato Miyuki,” she says with a grin and a bow. Even her name fits her, beautiful and sweet to hear. Nothing like the rough edges of _Tsukishima Kei_. “Nice to meet you, Tsukishima-kun.”

If Kei’s honest with himself, it kind of isn’t nice to meet her. In different circumstances, in a different universe where Kei isn’t trying to hold back five years of pain, maybe he’d like her. Maybe they’d be friends. 

“Same here,” he says, and he doesn’t even bother telling himself it’s true. He dips his head quickly. Miyuki falls into easy conversation with Hitoka, then, talking so naturally that Kei’s pretty sure this isn’t the first time they’ve met. Kei’s left to ask himself just how much he missed out on when he decided to cut ties with Yamaguchi.

Looking at her beside Yamaguchi, and Yamaguchi beside her, they’re such a picture perfect couple that Kei wants to puke. Her hand probably fits perfectly in his. They probably finish each other’s sentences. They probably don’t need words to communicate.

Kei really doesn’t want to be here anymore.

Yamaguchi doesn’t even look at him after that.

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

There are certain paradoxes that test the waters of what is and what isn’t. 

Given a pile of sand, you would take a grain away and ask if it is still a pile of sand. At what point does it stop being a pile? How many grains do you need for a pile of sand?

At the same time, at what point does a friend stop being a friend? At what point does the distance become too much? At what point do you realise that you don’t even know the person you’ve spent more than half of your life with? When did you stop knowing them? When did you stop caring about them?

The answer is never, of course. Kei never stopped caring. Kei can’t ever stop caring. But when did Yamaguchi become such a foreign, faraway concept? Kei can’t even remember what life was like when Yamaguchi was in it.

(He does, actually. You can’t forget something you’ve been tirelessly chasing after, even if it’s basically a carrot and stick, and he’s put himself on a treadmill. That doesn’t stop him from being dramatic, though.)

It’s normal, really, for people to grow apart. That’s what he tells himself. He and Yamaguchi are the same.

(Kei pretends it’s not because his solution to assuage his fear of them drifting apart was to tear them apart himself.)

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

The party was lacklustre at best, if you asked Kei. He’s been to better ones, maybe. Ones where he’d actually enjoy himself and drink until he’s puking his heart out the next morning. Though he’s not really sure what constitutes a good party when he’s not black-out drunk for most of it.

“We can leave early,” Hitoka had offered at Kei’s admittedly bitter expression, when Kuroo demanded a speech from the best man and a very begrudging Kenma stood up. It hurt, to be honest, not being the best man when he’d always imagined he would be one day. (It kind of hurts not to be the one waiting for Yamaguchi at the– stop thinking.) 

“It’s fine,” he says dryly, taking a sip from the glass of tap water he’d been poured. “I can live through one dinner.”

“Of course,” she said quietly, watching as Yamaguchi and his fiancée (it even hurt to think the word) talk animatedly to a group of people Kei can barely put names to. Yamaguchi’s always had a life outside of Kei. But a life without Kei is an entirely different story. 

“They’re opening the bar in a bit,” she says, after some silence. The tight grip on his wrist is familiar enough to mean something. Kei can’t say he’s not afraid of it, though. “Please take care of yourself, Kei.” She looks up at him through her lashes, a small frown on her face. Kei can’t bear to not listen.

“I’ll…I’ll try.”

“Kei, I don’t know what I’ll tell Tsukishima-san if something happens to you again,” she goes on, tiny hand not letting go of Kei’s wrist. “Please be careful.”

“I’ll…” The pleading in her eyes begged him to do more than _try_. “I will. Sorry, Hitoka.” She smiles, just the tiniest bit, but Kei knows she’s not entirely convinced. He can live with it.

“Am I interrupting something?” Yamaguchi’s voice cuts in. Hitoka doesn’t jump in surprise, but admittedly Kei does. She lets go of his wrist.

“Not at all!” Hitoka says, and Kei remembers thinking someone seemed like they punctuated every sentence with a smiley face, and maybe it applies to Hitoka now. Yamaguchi eyes Kei intently. 

“Tsukki.” He grins, the snaggletooth he surprisingly still hasn’t fixed drawing Kei’s eyes. Kei wishes he took up that offer to leave early. “You mind if we grab a drink together?” From the very edges of his vision, Kei sees Hitoka eye him warily. “You wouldn’t mind, would you, Hitoka-chan?”

Hitoka smiles at Yamaguchi warmly. “Again, not at all!” She taps Kei’s knuckles lightly. “You guys have fun, okay?”

Kei, despite reluctance bordering on refusal, feels himself stand up and walk with Yamaguchi to the bar tucked into one side of the room. They’re the only ones there, much to Kei’s chagrin, meaning there’s more space to talk about things that are less than ideal for his heart. Yamaguchi orders himself a whiskey. He eyes Kei when he doesn’t make a move to order anything.

“C’mon, help yourself,” he laughs, and if Kei still knew him he’d say it sounded quite strange and subdued. But who is he to say so? “It’s an open bar.”

“Ah,” he murmurs as he leans over to get the attention of the bartender. “Give me something sweet,” Kei requests, and the bartender nods as he turns away from them.

“So,” Yamaguchi starts, and he elbows Kei’s arm with a wink. Why does the barstool have to be bolted to the floor? Why not let him move slightly away from Yamaguchi? “You and Hitoka-chan, huh? When did that start?”

“Never,” Kei grunts coolly and all too quickly. The bartender places a cocktail glass in front of him. Hitoka’s words echo in his head. “Nothing’s going on with us.” 

If this were the past, Kei would tell Yamaguchi about Shouyou getting that call from Tobio so early in the morning. He himself hasn’t talked to Tobio much, but he knows Tobio is probably all dejected about the misunderstanding. But if this were the past, he wouldn’t have even known Shouyou got the call in the first place. If this were the past, Kei probably won’t be sitting here worrying about what to say like he’s trying to make a good impression on a new acquaintance.

“Oh,” Yamaguchi says quietly, sipping at his drink. He’s already halfway through the glass. Kei’s remains untouched. He thinks he can feel Hitoka staring holes into his back. Yamaguchi rolls the glass in his hands, the liquid sloshing dangerously up the sides. Kei looks at his own, untouched, glinting red under the bar lights. There’s a little cranberry on a toothpick sinking under the drink.

“I heard you still have a few days in Tokyo after this?” He looks up at Kei, mouth in a small smile, painted orange in the light. Kei hums in affirmation.

“We have maybe half a week,” he mumbles, briefly considering a first sip of his drink. The red, sickeningly sweet and looking like a melted lollipop, wanes his appetite, and he reminds himself he chose to be here; uncomfortable. Anxious. 

Afraid.

Yamaguchi leans into his space, wobbles slightly from the alcohol, and says to Kei softly, “you think she minds if I steal you for a bit?”

Before Kei could even consider the question, he’d already opened his mouth to speak. “No,” he says, and his face could be as red as his drink, but he refuses to know. “Not at all.”

God, he is such an idiot.

｡･ :*: ･ﾟ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

When Kei has to walk a slightly tipsy Hitoka back to the hotel, he ponders what he’s gotten himself into. Or tries to, at least, because Hitoka is nothing short of chatty when she’s gotten some alcohol into her system. Her small stature, of course, isn’t built for much, but she sure is heavy as she hangs off Kei’s left shoulder.

“I had fun, did you have fun?” She asks senselessly, and she looks off into the semi-empty street before gasping. “Do you think we should’ve brought something back for Shouyou? He must be so upset. And we just left him alone, Kei, we’re bad friends!”

Kei pulls her back as she staggers too close to the road. A car zooms past just in time for Hitoka to squeal in horror. “Careful,” Kei says belatedly, his eyebrows furrowing as he switches places with Hitoka to have her further from the road. “And no, we’re not bad friends. Shouyou can take care of himself. I think he’s pretty resilient.”

Hitoka giggles and takes a particularly large stride to avoid stepping on a line in the sidewalk. “Like a weed,” she says thoughtfully. “A bright, fluffy weed.”

“Dandelions?” Kei suggests. “Cacti are pretty resilient too.”

“Mm,” Hitoka hums, and they turn to look at the blinking signage of their hotel. “I think a dandelion would be better. They look more like Shou, don’t you think?” She does a puffing-out motion with her hands as they enter the elevator. Kei thinks she’s mimicking an explosion. “His hair.”

“I guess.” Hitoka stares at her hands as she repeats the motion. She curls her fists and shoots out her fingers fast, and all the while her cheeks puff up to make sound effects to herself. The elevator dings and they both walk out. 

“Oh!” She says all of a sudden, as Kei tries to find the key to their room in his wallet. “You know what he _really_ looks like?” He finds the small plastic card tucked in between a credit card and his old uni ID.

“What?” He asks, slightly amused, as he tries to unlock the door (the lock still won’t beep). On his third flip-around of the card, the lock clicks and they open the door.

“The trees from the lora—” Hitoka interrupts herself to let out a nice, hearty scream that pierces Kei’s eardrums. 

“Oh, my god!” Yells Shouyou from his place on the bed, Tobio promptly rolling off him and wiping his drool-slick lips with the sleeve of his sweater. “Can’t you _knock_?” He says, red-faced and angry, pointing accusingly at Kei.

“I have a fucking key!” Kei yells back, shoving the card in Shouyou’s direction. “And is that,” he points, slightly mortified, slightly resigned, but wholly expecting it, “is that my bed? The bed I slept on last night? The bed I specifically told you that I would be using while we stay here? _My_ bed?”

“The couch hurts my knees,” Tobio offers, quite unhelpfully.

“You two,” Kei says simply, eye twitching as he points at both Tobio and Shouyou, the latter of which still refuses to leave his bed. “Are disgusting, and I suggest you take your years of built-up sexual tension _elsewhere_.” 

Shouyou, all of a sudden, grows fidgety. “But _Kei_ ,” he says, looking up at him pleadingly, and Kei knows he’s already lost. “I promised Tobio he could stay.” 

It’s unfair, from a logical standpoint, that Shouyou would decide something like that without Kei’s permission, considering he’s paying for their hotel room. But he finds himself agreeing, anyway.

“Fine,” he groans, “But he’s sleeping on the couch.”

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

Kei slept on the couch.

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

Kei doesn’t really know what he’s doing at this point of his life. He’s got a slight problem with alcohol, a semi-decent paying job, and he’s sitting at a cafe in the middle of Tokyo with a weight on his chest and a lightness in his head. He realises that he hasn’t actually _looked_ at Yamaguchi since he’s got here. Here being Tokyo, here being the past five years of his boring, dumb life, but let’s not go there, he says.

Yamaguchi looks so beautiful it’s overwhelming, and if it wasn’t for the air conditioning inside the cafe, Kei would be sweating buckets. The lights from outside dance in Yamaguchi’s eyes and Kei finds himself missing highschool—if only to see this everyday without the onslaught of heartache readying itself in the back of his head.

“Do you like it here?” Yamaguchi says, then, because they haven’t really talked since they both got here, and the words are too much and too little for Kei at the moment. He takes a stab at his cake.

“Mm,” he says shortly. “Their cake is nice.”

“Right?” Yamaguchi’s face lights up and it’s a bit nice that it’s because of Kei. “I went here with Miyuki once, and we tried the cake, and I thought, ‘hey, Tsukki would like it here!’ And–” He goes red as he stops himself, and sinks into his seat like he’d just admitted to a crime. Kei’s surprised at the words. Surprised that Yamaguchi was still kind enough to think of him, even after what he’s done–

“Anyway,” the word snaps him out of his thoughts. “Would you like to go anywhere in particular today? Or do you want me to drag you around the itinerary I have?” The words are a lot more subdued, and the face Yamaguchi has plastered on is smiling, but it’s doing unpleasant things to Kei’s stomach.

Kei feigns consideration with a hum, though he already knows what he’s going to answer. “Drag me around?” He offers, and as an afterthought, he adds, “just like old times,” to try and lighten the mood. Yamaguchi grins through the fork in his mouth.

“Yeah,” he says, and the sparkle in his eyes almost betrays what Kei’s led himself to believe for the past five years. “Just like old times.”

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

It happens right after practice ends.

Hinata looks up at him with big, bright eyes that shouldn’t sparkle at night but do, anyway, and Kei curses the fact that he’s alone.

“Tsukishima,” he says simply, and Kei feels a bit dumb, staring back down at Hinata at the bottom of the clubroom steps. The moonlight paints him pale, and if Kei didn’t feel as if he were being picked apart by his hollow shell of a brain he’d maybe say it looked peaceful on him.

“What,” he grits out, the hand on the strap of his bag gripping tighter. 

“Why do you always drag Yamaguchi around?” He looks at Kei like Kei’s supposed to feel weighted by the statement. To be honest, he’s more confused than he is affronted by the accusation. He quirks his eyebrow with a tilt of his head. Hinata gawks. “Are you actually more oblivious than I thought?” 

That actually hurts, coming from Hinata. “Speak for yourself,” he snarks, and Hinata jumps back the slightest bit. “I don’t drag him around. Yamaguchi’s no dog.” Kei jabs a finger at Hinata’s chest, and anger bubbles in his own stomach at Hinata’s words. “Do you really think that low of him? Do you really think he’s as brainless as you are? I know you were born headless but I seriously expected more from y—”

“Tsukki!” Yamaguchi calls from the top of the staircase. Kei retracts his hand from Hinata, and tries to ignore (but he can’t, he really can’t) the look on Hinata’s face (it was dumbfounded, first and foremost, but it was sad, so honest-to-god sad. Had Kei gone too far? Had he finally crossed the line with Hinata?).

“Yamaguchi,” he greets coolly, as Yamaguchi descends down the metal steps with the footsteps echoing in the empty night. “I was just about to leave you.” This is a joke. But he looks at Hinata and his face is as open as ever, and Kei begins to doubt for the first time ever if Yamaguchi sees it as such. If he didn’t, if he fully believed that Kei is cold and unforgiving towards tardiness, if he actually thought Kei didn’t care much about whether or not Yamaguchi walks home with him, Yamaguchi doesn’t show it.

“Sorry, Tsukki!” He chirps instead, and just as Kei prays he wouldn’t, Yamaguchi throws a cursory glance at Hinata. The curve of his smile turns into a frown, and he begins to move towards the damned redhead. “Hey, are you–”

“I’m fine!” Hinata squeaks, all too quick and all too loudly. His red face and the way his voice cracks is not lost on Kei, and more likely not lost on Yamaguchi. “Sorry, I think Kageyama’s waiting ahead for me, so I’ll just go.” Hinata scrambles away, and Kei hopes Yamaguchi will brush it off as he says his piece.

“You ready to go?” He says, and Yamaguchi nods enthusiastically. 

“We have to hurry, though. I think I read that they close early.” They being a new bakery that had opened a few blocks away from Karasuno, of which Yamaguchi had begged (read as: simply asked once) Kei to come with him to after practice ended.

Yamaguchi skips ahead, and Kei follows willingly. This is where Hinata gets it wrong. He doesn’t drag anybody around. Suns don’t revolve around planets. Planets, after all, follow the path the sun’s pull sets for them. Kei had always been following, revolving, chasing after Yamaguchi. Call it what you’d like.

He’s a man that walks ahead of him, after all.

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

“Would you like to see my workplace, Tsukki?” Yamaguchi asks, and it is then that Kei realises they’ve been walking around aimlessly since they’ve left the cafe. 

“That’s sort of needless, don’t you think?” He asks back, and Yamaguchi hums indifferently from beside him. “Do you need anything from there?”

“Not really,” Yamaguchi answers, does a little hop to the side to make way for a child. Seamless in rhythm. Kei runs into a shop sign and barely manages to catch it before it falls. The host of the shop glares as Kei bows his head as they pass by. Yamaguchi snickers. 

“Then why?” Kei asks again, and this time narrowly avoids a businessman chatting on his phone. Yamaguchi squeezes past a group of schoolgirls like it’s nothing, attuned to the dance of Tokyo that Kei’s bound to be clumsy at. A child steps on his foot. There’s mud on his white shoes. 

Yamaguchi doesn’t answer, but his hand reaches back to grab Kei’s wrist impatiently, and while he bumps into more people than Yamaguchi dodges, he finds he doesn’t really mind it. “I think you’ll like it there,” Yamaguchi says simply, looks back at him with a grin on his face. 

He looked so beautiful.

So out of reach.

“Um,” Kei musters, almost making a mother drop her child. “Okay, Yamaguchi.” He jogs to get beside him, and finally Yamaguchi lets go of his hand. “If you say so.”

“We’re almost there,” Yamaguchi says, and this time Kei can’t see much of the expression he’s making. “You’ll see.”

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

“Todai…?”

“Isn’t it great?” Yamaguchi laughs, arms akimbo as they stare up at the building. “My professor offered me a job at the labs here right after I graduated. She says I’m one of the best students she’s ever had.” 

Kei is still only staring at the back of Yamaguchi’s silhouette. The sun paints him bright, and he shines with pride as he relays this to Kei. He tries, with all his might, to be happy for Yamaguchi, he really does, but staring up at a university he’s never been in and a person he doesn’t really know anymore, it all just fills him with a bitterness he thought he’d gotten over years ago.

“C’mon, let’s go inside! I want to show you around.”

It’s really not a good idea. Every hallway is a hallway Yamaguchi’s walked in, and every classroom is a classroom Yamaguchi’s been in, and every person is a person Yamaguchi’s talked to. There’s no escape from the fact that Todai is just another box of Yamaguchi’s that Kei isn’t allowed to be in.

He tries to please himself with the thought of Yamaguchi introducing Kei to someone, and being asked if he’s _the_ Tsukishima Kei, who went to nationals twice, who likes dinosaurs too much for someone who isn’t four, who Yamaguchi’s known for practically forever. Wants to be asked if he’s _that_ Tsukishima Kei. But even that feels like a lie.

He’s expecting it, but it’s still a splash of cold, hard truth to the face when a man he’s introduced to regards him with a fleeting bow and a smile before turning to Yamaguchi and talking about god-knows-what.

At the very least, if Kei remembers correctly, and Yamaguchi hadn’t changed his degree and thus his department in the last five years, they’d be talking about geology, or something akin to it. Something Kei can’t even begin to comprehend. So, to him, the conversation goes a bit like this:

“Rocks. Rocks rocks rocks, rocks?”

“Rocks! Rocks rocks rocks rocks rocks rocks.”

“Rocks rocks? Tsukki?”

He quickly snaps out of the (slightly mocking, if he’ll admit to it) daydream he’d made up for Yamaguchi and his friend? Acquaintance? Colleague? God, Kei didn’t even pay attention. Yamaguchi eyes him weirdly, expression on his face unreadable, and the files upon files of Yamaguchi’s expressions in Kei’s head are rusty, or at the very least not up-to-date, because he can’t, for the life of him, pick it apart and analyse it like he used to in highschool.

“Let’s go?” Yamaguchi maybe repeats, and Kei nods dumbly as he follows along the footsteps Yamaguchi leaves. 

Maybe things have changed too much to be fixed. 

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

One time, near the end of second year, Ennoshita catches them doing nothing in the corner of the gym. It’s not like they need to do anything, all of the interhighs and tournaments are over with. They don’t need to train, and Kei, despite finding his love for volleyball, still doesn’t see the need to push himself unnecessarily. Still, Yamaguchi turns to him, and it’s clearly written on his face that he thinks Ennoshita is going to scold them both.

“Yamaguchi,” Ennoshita says before Kei can start with reassurances. “I need to talk to you later.” His eyes flit over to Kei. “And, uh,” he flusters. “You can bring support if you want to.”

Later, as it turns out, meant Ennoshita chasing after them as they turn to leave for home. 

“Sorry for keeping you,” he says, slightly out of breath. Yamaguchi’s sweaty hand finds Kei’s somewhere between them. It’s gross, but it’s Yamaguchi, and Kei’s heart is trying to make itself known, but he keeps his facade calm as ever.

“Coach asked me to start finding a suitable captain,” Ennoshita says.

“Um, yeah, I think I can give you some recommendations.” Yamaguchi, in Kei’s entire history and documentation of their lives, can, in fact, read between the lines of what people are saying. His eyes are downcast, and he refuses to look at neither Kei nor Ennoshita in the eye, and it says as much that Yamaguchi knows _exactly_ what Ennoshita is talking about.

“You don’t need to.” Ennoshita straightens himself up, and Kei knows what’s about to come next. Partly because he’s smart enough to put two and two together, but mostly because he heard Ennoshita and Tanaka talking about it about two weeks ago exactly. “Yamaguchi, I want you to be captain next year.”

“Ennoshita-san,” Yamaguchi says quietly, wasting no time to pause or think. Kei’s pretty sure there is anger flaming in his own chest. The way Yamaguchi holds himself has changed a lot in the past year, but it doesn’t mean it’s changed how he thinks of himself at all. Kei knows this, and Kei, who’s more stubborn than a rock in a river when it comes to change, wishes he could change _this,_ of all things.

“I don’t want to say your judgement is in any way wrong,” Yamaguchi continues. Kei wants it to stop. “But there’s no way I’m fit to be captain.”

“And why is that?”

“I’m–I’m not as good as the rest of them. I don’t… I– why me?” Kei doesn’t want to say anything, and he knows he’s not allowed to interject, but in that moment alone he’s never had more words threatening to spill out of his mouth. If he were braver, if he were less… like himself, he’d do something about it. Something that isn’t waiting until they’re alone and scolding Yamaguchi. He knows one day he’ll regret it.

“Yamaguchi,” Ennoshita sighs, and the irritation that leaks into the crevices is not lost to either of them. Kei pretends he doesn’t notice the way Yamaguchi’s hand tightens around his three fingers. “Stop selling yourself short. Look, I’ll– I’ll give you time. You have three days, and if you really don’t want to, I can just give the position to someone else. But think about it, okay?” He turns around, just then, walks away towards the exit. But he turns back and looks at them, eyes, Kei can only assume, piercing through Yamaguchi like a blade through a dictator’s back. “Like, _really_ think about it.”

There, in the dead language Kei has honed over all these years, Yamaguchi’s face screamed it louder than ever. 

_Pathetic._

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

“Where to next?”

“Tokyo tower.” Yamaguchi pauses his steps. Someone bumps into Kei and loudly apologises. “Is that okay?”

_I’ll go wherever you go,_ he wants to say, so badly. But Kei knows it’s nothing more than lies now.

“I guess.” 

Yamaguchi smiles brightly at him, and Kei decides these moments are what photographs were made for.

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

For Kei and Yamaguchi, being alone is a natural habitat. If friendships had homes, theirs would be isolated; peaceful, wordless bliss. Kei’s sure it’s a talent, being as comfortable as they are in each other’s quiet presence. 

No one else needs to be there to make the minutes enjoyable. No one between them needs to speak. With a nod and a look, Kei already knows what Yamaguchi’s thinking. And he’s sure it’s the same the other way around. He’s sure they’ll never have “awkward” in the entire vocabulary of their friendship.

There’s no other way he’ll have it. Kei’s sure this will last forever. 

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

Kei hates this. 

He hates that no one is talking. He hates that neither of them are looking at each other. He hates that he wants to say something to fill the air, knows exactly everything he’d wanted to tell Yamaguchi since he left for Tokyo, knows that Yamaguchi wants to tell Kei so many things at this moment, but for some reason that’s completely incomprehensible to Kei, neither of them make a move. He hates everything that’s lead up to this very moment, even if it was yesterday or five years ago. He doesn’t care. But most of all, he hates the word he’s being forced to use for what he’s currently feeling.

He hates how _awkward_ this is.

It’s not like there’s nothing to say (he thinks he’s been over this already), but more like there’s too much to say at that moment. He’s getting too much of a glimpse of a life with Yamaguchi in it, but what hangs in the air is too great of a deal to throw away. He feels like something is coming, and it’s not exactly _good_. 

But Yamaguchi’s looking at him like everything’s normal, and the sinking rays of daylight are hitting him beautifully. The murmur of the crowd dies down in Kei’s head. He can ignore thick and syrupy awkward, he thinks. He can ignore his own feelings to make Yamaguchi happy. It’s all he’s ever been doing, anyway.

“You okay?” Yamaguchi asks him as they get out of the elevator. 

“Yeah,” Kei answers curtly. There’s, as expected, a lot of people at the observation deck, but the crowd is a lot less dense now that it’s not exactly summer. Thick clouds form over Tokyo, painted purple by the deepening sky, and the lights come to life around them. 

“You know,” Kei says, as they settle into a less than optimal spot within the crowd. “It's gonna be your birthday in a month. You want anything in particular?” Kei aches at his own question. He's never had to ask that in their fifteen years of friendship. But could he really count the past five years in that statistic? Should he really be counting his absence as friendship?

Yamaguchi fixes him with an incredulous smirk. “You haven't given me a birthday gift in five years.” Kei's chest clenches just the slightest bit at that. Yamaguchi folds his arms and rests them on the railing. 

“Yeah, but—”

“I just want my best friend back.” Yamaguchi doesn't turn his head to look at Kei, doesn't bother to hide how he slumps his shoulders as he says it. “I just want _us_ back.”

Kei plants himself next to Yamaguchi. Some time in his youth it would be natural, like a planet to the sun, circling around light for eternity. Now it feels strange, and he's somewhat unsure if he should even be doing it. He only prays he can earn the familiarity back.

“You’ve been so out of reach for so long,” Yamaguchi says, leaning his head on his arms folded across the railing. His eyes are downcast as he stares at the city below, freckles illuminated by the harsh glow of the multicoloured lights. 

“I’m here now, right?” Kei says, and he doesn’t quite feel the words as he should, has them slosh around his mouth like bile and it hurts so much to spit them out.

Kei pretends to not to see the way Yamaguchi’s jaw sets itself stiffly, pretends to not to see him clench his fists. His eyelids drop the slightest bit more, and Kei wants to tell himself the smile Yamaguchi cranks his face into is real. 

“Yeah,” he says, and the lights dim the slightest bit around them. “I guess you are.”

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

Once, when they were nine, Yamaguchi had night terrors quite frequently. His groans and his shaky breaths fill the room loud as thunder, at least to Kei, who sleeps too lightly to sleep through anything.

Akiteru had interrupted their movie night one day. It had irked Kei just the slightest, but since it’s Akiteru, and he was cool, he’d let it slide. Kei even let him pick the movie.

What wasn’t cool was Yamaguchi beside him gripping his arm so tight it would bruise. Kei tells him off, and just before he turns his focus back to the horror movie Akiteru had chosen, he hears Yamaguchi mutter an apology.

He’d asked if Yamaguchi was okay with a horror movie. Checked twice, and Yamaguchi said he was okay both times. Though there was still something Yamaguchi wasn’t telling him. Kei watches the way Yamaguchi’s eyes are turned to the floor more than he was watching the movie. Watches him curl into himself more whenever the ghost pops out with its messy hair and black eyes and pale skin. 

Kei’s starting to suspect that choosing a horror movie was not okay at all, but there was no way, between this lifetime and the next, that he was going to interrupt the movie Akiteru liked. He didn’t want to look uncool in front of _him_ , of all people.

Later, in bed, Yamaguchi’s feet are clammier than usual underneath their shared blanket. Kei wants to be annoyed, but to some extent, this might be his fault, too. Yamaguchi looked absolutely petrified before the film even started. Instead of doing the right thing, Kei wanted to look cool in front of his brother.

He can’t sleep, because aside from the cold, sweaty feet pressed against his calves, there was also the matter of Yamaguchi getting night terrors, again. He seemed to be louder, though, and the rise and fall of his breathing is more erratic than it usually is. Kei doesn’t really want to do anything. He doesn’t know if he _can_ do anything.

Yamaguchi, however, is quick to change this when Kei hears him choke out a sob in his sleep. In his quickly muttered prayer that the sob is the first and last, Yamaguchi lets out another.

Kei waits.

And another.

Kei sits up. He looks over at Yamaguchi, tries to see over his back turned to Kei. The tears are hard to miss under the soft glow of the moon outside. Yamaguchi’s face is just a blob of shadows to Kei, but the tracks sparkle in the light as more teardrops trace over them. He puts a hesitant hand on Yamaguchi’s shoulder, shakes him awake as light as he could. 

Yamaguchi yelps awake, quick to cover his mouth as he almost lets out a shout. His foot kicks Kei, and he really should mind, but he doesn’t, because Yamaguchi’s still crying, and this is Kei’s fault, really. He should’ve said something. He curses the fact that he never says anything.

“Yamaguchi, are you–” _Okay? Is he okay? He definitely isn’t. Stupid. This is stupid. Pathetic and lame and stupid._

Yamaguchi puts a shaky hand where Kei touches his shoulder. “Tsukki,” he mutters softly. Kei hears him sniffle. “Did I wake you?”

“You always do,” Kei answers, just as soft. “Turn around.” He jostles Yamaguchi’s shoulder the slightest bit, but as he pulls away, Yamaguchi seems to follow his hand. Kei finds himself staring at irises that are pitch-black in the dark.

“Sorry,” Yamaguchi sniffles softly, the word butchered with the way he mutters it. Kei settles back into the bed, lying down to face Yamaguchi. The way he slides back down on the bed has his shirt ride up his side uncomfortably, and as he twists to face Yamaguchi, it seems hell-bent on making this whole situation more unbearable than it needs to be.

“Don’t say that,” Kei replies, and he reaches out to wipe a tear from Yamaguchi’s face. Yamaguchi follows his hand with his own, tiny, but big enough to encircle Kei’s thin wrist. _I’m much taller than he is_ , Kei thinks absently. Akiteru had once held up a bird with a broken wing and told him they have to protect small things. The sun hit its feathers all rainbow and bright, and Kei was taught the word _iridescent_ for the first time.

“Please go back to sleep,” Yamaguchi says. His cheeks shift, and Kei thinks he’s smiling. “Sorry for waking you.”

“The movie…” Kei says, and Yamaguchi’s grip tightens on his wrist. “It was really scary, wasn’t it?”

“Really scary.” The way Yamaguchi spoke the words sounded like lighthearted agreement, but there’s a pause that seemed to drag into years. Yamaguchi’s hand leaves Kei’s wrist to cover his mouth, and the way he curls into himself makes something clench painfully in Kei’s stomach. A sob comes muffled through Yamaguchi’s hand (tiny, like the bird in the sun), and without really thinking about it, Kei swings an arm too lanky for a nine-year-old over Yamaguchi’s torso and pulls him ever closer.

“Don’t leave.” Kei manages to piece the two words together through Yamaguchi’s frantic sobs.

Kei is taller than Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi, curled up, with his face pressed against Kei’s shirt, hands tight and pressing awkwardly against Kei’s back, he fit perfectly in the spaces Kei’s body left empty on the bed. Kei’s not sure he’s hugged even his mother this tight before.

“I won’t,” Kei says, the words heavy in his mouth. It feels like something he could uphold forever.

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

Kei’s spent most of his life enjoying quiet. In fact, he’s led himself there’s no such thing as _too_ quiet. Yamaguchi loves doing the impossible and proving Kei wrong. In fact, he’s spent most of his life doing it, developing a penchant for the craft.

Dinner is too quiet for Kei. He watches Yamaguchi slurp on a forkful of spaghetti. The sauce spills over his lips. He doesn’t look up at Kei. Kei looks out of the window and sees a child walking with his mom. The lights of the western-style diner they’re in paints the streets a pale yellow.

Shouyou’s voice, offering Shouyou’s stupid ideas, lights up in Kei’s head. _You know what would break the ice?_ It says to Kei. _Twenty questions!_

Before he can stop himself, Kei lets out a meagre “hey.” Yamaguchi looks up, halfway through a bite of a meatball. Kei looks down at his own half-eaten plate of mashed potatoes and hamburger steak.

There’s so many things he wants to know. There’s so many things he used to know. Little things, like the way Yamaguchi eats his egg sandwiches (he sprinkles cayenne pepper on top, eats three in one sitting because that’s the most a single boiled egg would allow. This usually means he never buys them in convenience stores, because he thinks those are too sweet). Or big things, like how Yamaguchi hated every moment leading up to him being captain (but he’d embraced it, of course. He’d cried when their juniors bade him goodbye on their graduation, and Kei had refused to memorise the moment in fear of his own heart breaking in two at all the changes about to divide them both).

It’s weird to be thinking this over a plate of _hamburger steak,_ of all things. He’s pretty sure highschool Kei would think it was weird to think of it regardless of whatever he’s doing. Yamaguchi, from across him, finishes chewing through his food behind a polite hand. 

“Um,” Kei scrambles. It’s like jumping into the deep end of a pool without knowing how to swim. _Reckless,_ he scolds himself. “Do you. Um.”

“Take your time,” Yamaguchi chuckles, twirling his next forkful of spaghetti. 

“Do you still have your onion goggles.” The question (or statement?) leaves his mouth before he can even revel in how ridiculous it might sound. Yamaguchi looks right at him, eyes staring right into Kei’s shamelessly. He takes his sweet time eating the pasta, and Kei remembers how much Yamaguchi loved to tease. Maybe some things just never change.

Kei watches him swallow, the action drawn out and painful. 

“My onion goggles,” Yamaguchi repeats. Kei nods, ready to just about melt through his seat like his body was made of acid. Yamaguchi drops his fork, and the clatter it makes is loud and headache-inducing against the low din of the diner. Kei braces himself for the mocking laughter.

Instead, he gets a quiet giggle, and Yamaguchi is glowing under the artificial lights. “You remember that?” Yamaguchi looks up at Kei meekly, and Kei feels like he’s experiencing something very important for the very first time.

“I remember everything,” he says dumbly, because it’s true, and he’ll do anything to let Yamaguchi know he’s still Kei, his _best friend._ Yamaguchi smiles up at him through a thin blush settling on his cheeks. Time, for a moment, slows down, just as time slows down for planets closer to the sun. Kei feels warmer than he’s ever been in this whole trip to Tokyo. He feels the orbit getting closer.

“I do,” Yamaguchi admits, the words spoken with less embarrassment and more… something else. “They hang right by the knives. Miyu-chan says it’s kind of ridiculous.”

_They are,_ Kei wants to say. Having goggles just for cutting onions is ridiculous, but entirely Yamaguchi-esque, and it’s cute and endearing in all the ways Yamaguchi is Yamaguchi. But he can’t say that. Not right now.

“And,” Kei starts again. His mind draws infinite blanks. “Do you still only eat the yellow skittles?” 

“No,” Yamaguchi says, suddenly serious. Kei feels an odd sense of loss in his chest. “I’ve switched to just the red ones now.”

“Pokemon?” Kei says, then, and Yamaguchi lights up proudly at the word.

“Always!” He exclaims, childlike and sweet in ways only Yamaguchi could be. “I’m buying the new one when I get enough money.”

“Both games?”

“Are we playing a game?” Yamaguchi eyes him, amusement dancing in his eyes. It’s familiar in a sense that this is all so new. Kei allows himself to treasure it. “If so, I want to ask questions too.”

“Whatever you say,” Kei says, aims for noncommittal. It’s natural that Yamaguchi sees right through him.

It’s strange that this Yamaguchi still sees right through him.

“So, Kenma’s best man, huh?”

“You wouldn’t believe it. We got really close in Uni.”

Dinner dwindles down a few dozen questions after that, and Yamaguchi turns serious. It’s very much unlike when he answered Kei’s question about the yellow skittles.

“Do you,” he starts, and his gaze drifts away for the first time since Kei’s started this pseudo game of twenty questions. “Do you mind if I ask you something heavy?”

It’s constricting, but somehow he’s been waiting for this. It’s the weight that hasn’t dropped since he’d arrived in Tokyo. The one that’s been hanging by a thread. “Go ahead,” he barely manages to say. The words are like sand in his mouth.

“Why did we drift apart?” 

It’s not a normal question to ask. It’s pathetic to ask, and people don’t usually get the chance to ask it. It’s a normal thought to have, but not something you should ever vocalise. But Yamaguchi always did have a talent for doing the impossible and proving Kei wrong. The fact is so obvious, but Kei can’t seem to stop forgetting.

He scrambles to find the right words. There’s never right words when it comes to anyone for Kei, but there are always right words for Yamaguchi. 

“People change,” Kei says simply. The words leave sores in his mouth. “And, well, we’re people, Yamaguchi.”

Yamaguchi looks like he wants to say something, and if this were in highschool when wounds were still healing themselves from years over, Kei would have said something like “if you want to say something, just spit it out.” But it’s not highschool anymore, and he’s afraid that any more pressure and the thin glass string of theirs will break.

“You wanna go drinking?” Yamaguchi says. The smile stinging just as much as it did back in the Sky Tree. “I know a great place nearby.”

Against better judgement, be it Hitoka’s words from last night or the fact that he’s still clinging to the hope that somehow he’ll repair this, Kei agrees.

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

The place they end up in is loud, and perfectly built for perfectly sociable people. It’s young in a sense that it’s only full because of all the college kids running around trying to drink away deadlines and homesickness. At least that’s what Kei assumes. It reminds him of a place he would frequent back in college, and that’s what _he’d_ been doing, at least.

In front of him, Yamaguchi is laughing. There are piles of shot glasses and bottles between them in the booth. Kei’s lost count which ones were his, but he’s sure enough that it’s not the most evenly divided ratio. That is, he’s pretty sure most of them were his.

“Oh my god,” Yamaguchi keeps laughing. “You drink like a beast! Were you, like, a party animal in college?”

Kei downs another bottle, and he hears Hitoka warn him again. “You could say that.” It slips through his mouth easy and slow, and half of it is maybe blurred in with the other words, but Yamaguchi is still laughing, so at the very least Kei is accomplishing _something_.

“What I’d pay to see that,” Yamaguchi says, his fit dwindling down as he settles in his seat. The jab stings Kei’s guilt, and he deserves whatever kidney failure he’ll get if he keeps up his drinking habits, so he drinks another bottle.

Yamaguchi seems to burn a little brighter, and maybe it’s just the alcohol, but the sun seems to drift away a little bit more.

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

As they step outside, there’s no more cars in the street, and Kei’s phone tells him it’s early in the morning (he can’t exactly read the numbers, but he’s sure it’s way past 12). Yamaguchi is hanging off Kei’s shoulders, and he’s heavy, but Kei doesn’t mind. The heat helps in October. 

“It’s dark out,” Yamaguchi says dumbly, and there’s a flush on his face and his smile is so dopey. Kei almost wants to pretend this will drag on forever. “Walk me home?”

“I don’t know where your house is,” Kei says. The sentence is new to their friendship, or at least it’s being reintroduced. He can’t quite remember the first time Yamaguchi had asked him to his house, but he does remember the first time he’d been there.

“You’re gonna have to,” Yamaguchi states matter-of-factly. “You’re gonna have to, if you really want to be best friends with me.”

Kei finds himself laughing. “If you wanna be my lover,” he sings stupidly, because the way Yamaguchi said that had suddenly reminded him of the song. 

Yamaguchi laughs too, and he skips ahead, dragging Kei along with him. “You gotta get with my friends,” he continues. “I’m serious, though.” Yamaguchi’s arm around Kei’s neck tightens just the slightest bit. “I want you to visit me. A lot.”

“I will,” Kei agrees, all too easily. He doesn’t even care anymore if it’s the alcohol talking or if he really did want to earn everything back. “I’ll bring games.”

Yamaguchi chuckles at that. “And I’ll cook you dinner. With my… _onion goggles._ ” 

They laugh. And this is easy. Kei asks himself why it hadn’t been like this sooner. “Then you’ll get all confused when you take them off because everything is so _orange_.”

“Hey!” Yamaguchi jabs a finger at his face. “’S not my fault I like buying the blue-tinted ones.”

“Shut up, Yamaguchi.” It’s like pure relief to say it. Yamaguchi grins, nice and wide, his eyes closed and teeth bare. 

“Sorry,” Yamaguchi says, and it’s incomplete. Kei snaps back into reality.

He’s flush drunk and he knows it. He keeps telling himself what this whole day has been reminding him of. That Yamaguchi’s just a stranger now. That their friendship is no match for five whole years of Kei being a spineless coward. 

And yet. His chest aches the same. Has the same hole he’s carved himself all those years ago, Yamaguchi-shaped and perfect, childishly edged and sculpted. It’s filled with summer and volleyball and shared plates of fries. Kei hasn’t bothered to get rid of it, despite knowing better for himself. He still aches for the same bright star. 

The man in front of him is a stranger with a face of someone familiar. Kei doesn’t know what he did last week or what he had for breakfast. Doesn’t know what colour his bedsheets are. Doesn’t know what’s on the lock screen of his phone or who’s in the pictures on his walls. Doesn’t know anything he’d know about his Yamaguchi. Kei longs for someone that no longer exists.

But that doesn’t mean he longs for this one any less.

The streetlamp is bright against the murky black sky, and Yamaguchi’s face is looking up at him. He licks his lips, and Kei aches for it so badly. 

“You know,” he says, and maybe this will snap the weight. This admission of guilt. “I’ve always liked you.” Yamaguchi’s eyes go wide, and the whole world stops.

He leans in.

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

Parties are stupid, Kei concludes. Parties thrown by classmates he barely knows are stupid, and loud, and there’s an unnecessary amount of alcohol in it. He’s eighteen, and he’d much rather be in bed watching that new documentary on BBC, even if Yamaguchi keeps telling him that he can’t really grasp the english ones.

They’ve found themselves cornered in the kitchen, where the least amount of music from the living room leaks in. It’s still loud enough that they have to shout to hear each other.

The fluorescent lights shine on Yamaguchi’s face, and from where Kei is standing, right between Yamaguchi’s legs as he sits on the counter, it’s almost like a halo. It’s perfect for Yamaguchi. 

“You still sure you like parties?” He says loudly, and Yamaguchi rolls his eyes, mouth forming a smile from behind his cup. 

“I told you,” Yamaguchi says as he finishes his sip. As he puts it down beside him, Kei finds it to be water. “I want us to experience high school life to the fullest.” He pulls his knee in to nudge at Kei’s hip. “And that includes shitty parties.”

“It shouldn’t, though,” Kei grumbles.

“What was that?” Yamaguchi teases. “You want extra laps tomorrow?”

“Shut up, Yamaguchi.”

“Sorry, Tsukki!”

He’s so beautiful like this, Kei, aged eighteen, concludes at a shitty party. He entertains the thought of standing at full height and kissing Yamaguchi. He wonders what Yamaguchi would taste like, or what Yamaguchi would taste.

It’s just a thought, but standing with his back to the world and eyes only on Yamaguchi, at this moment, in this little pocket of time, Kei wholeheartedly believes that if he kissed him, leaned in and closed the kilometres between them, a sun and his planet, that Yamaguchi would’ve leaned in, and kissed him right back.

｡･ :*:  ☆｡･ :*: ･ﾟ ☽

Yamaguchi punches him hard and square on the jaw, and Kei, woozy from the alcohol, doesn't feel pain as he should. Yamaguchi's knuckles would bruise in the morning, and Kei is honestly more worried about that than he should be for himself. 

Here is Yamaguchi, dark in the night, his freckles barely visible in the bleak light of the flickering street lamp. Kei's never seen this on his face before, the strong furrow of his eyebrows and his eyes all blown, his mouth set into a determined grit. Maybe he has, once or twice, with Yamaguchi yelling at him for being so hard on himself, but this time is different. Yamaguchi doesn't do this to help Kei, Yamaguchi isn't doing this for Kei at all.

Here is Yamaguchi, livid and vulnerable, panting as he points an accusatory finger at Kei. Red-faced, perhaps, but it could be the alcohol or a trick of the light. 

“Get the fuck away from me!” He yells, a foot planted behind him, as if ready to bolt. “You think you can just come back and tell me this shit and I'll like you again?”

That hits Kei hard. _Again?_ When had it started? When had it stopped?

“Yamaguchi, I didn’t mean—”

“Didn’t mean what!” Yamaguchi screams, and he jabs a finger at Kei. “You didn’t mean fucking what! You never mean _shit_ , you never do shit right. Don’t you get it?”

“I don’t—”

“You think I didn’t know? You think the others would really keep quiet and pretend they don’t know _why_ you’re not talking to me? Did you think I was stupid enough not to figure it out the fucking _moment_ you started getting distant? You fucking asshole!”

“You think I wanted this?” Kei finds himself shouting back. He really shouldn’t, he’s as guilty as guilty can get, but his fists are balled and the weight has snapped, and there’s really no more hiding from this conversation. “I hated every second of it just as much as you! I didn’t want us to drift apart—”

“So you figured you’d just do it yourself?” Yamaguchi cuts him off, the sentence muttered. His eyes are dark. Kei wants to laugh. Any version of Yamaguchi really _can_ see through him. 

“Exactly.”

Yamaguchi bounds over and yanks him by the collar. There are tears in his eyes. “I fucking hate you!” He spits, and from the look in his eyes Kei knows this to be true. “I hate you, and everything you’ve put me through! This entire day has been fucking torture! You’re so fucking unbelievable!”

“You don’t hate me—” Kei tries, bares that shit-eating grin he’s never had to give Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi shakes him something fierce.

“Oh yeah?” He says, and he twists his face into something awful and wicked. He pushes Kei away, and the next words he spits out melts through Kei’s ears like acid. “People change,” Yamaguchi mocks. “And we’re people, Kei.”

The two of them are silent. Kei’s never heard it louder his whole life. Yamaguchi’s tears start breaking through his cheeks, and the loud silence is broken by even louder sobs.

“Fuck, Tsukishima, five fucking years. Nothing from you. No calls, no texts, no emails, no anything! I reached out now because— God, I don't even know why. I already gave up on you, but why do you still—” Yamaguchi covers his face with his hands. Kei tells himself that a few months from now, a ring is going to be on there somewhere. Yamaguchi lets out a yell and sinks to his knees.

“I _liked_ you,” Yamaguchi continues. “And I thought... I really thought you liked me back, but you cut me off so fucking fast.” Yamaguchi hiccups, then coughs wetly. Kei wants so bad to be there for him. “Am I... Was I really your friend?”

Kei takes a step forward. “Yamaguchi—”

“No,” Yamaguchi says, jaw set through his palms. His voice is quiet but it reverbs in the night. “Go home, Kei. Please.”

* * *

_“Homesickness is just a state of mind for me. I’m always missing someone or someplace or something. I’m always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere._ **_My life has been one long longing_ ** _.”_

_— Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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